Controlled refrigeration system



Nov. 19, 1963 w. A. GEBHARDT 3,111,012

CONTROLLED REFRIGERATION SYSTEM Filed'Jan. 11, 1960 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 l INVENTOR WILLARD A. GEBHAHD ATTORNEYS Nov. 19, 1963 w. A. GEBHARDT CONTROLLED REFRIGERATION SYSTEM 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Jan. 11, 1960 H H n \NN NN I PQRFQL wa E in 4% $4 H w t M? 0% 1 3 9 494 INVENTOR WILLARD A.GEBHARDT ATTORNEYS rates atent nice 3,111,012 CONTROLLED REFRIGERATION SYSTEM Willard A. Gehhardt, Milwaukee, Wis assigncr to Packers Development Corporation, Milwaukee, Wis, a corporation of Wisconsin Filed Jan. 11, 1960, Ser. No. 1,562 4 Claims. (Cl. 62-419) This invention appertains to controlled refrigeration systems and more particularly to a refrigeration system and unit utilized primarily for freezing and chilling meat products.

In the meat industry, after various link products such as frankfurters, bratwurst and other small link products have been made, they are held overnight in a refrigerated space for chilling.

Further, in the making of liver sausage which is usually stulfed into 50 inch fibrous casings, it has heretofore been necessary to chill the same for at least 48 hours before it could be cut for chub packaging without smearing. Another problem in the meat packing industry resides in the shrinkage of the products during the chilling step and further, it has been found that where some orders are to be filled immediately, it is necessary to keep rather a large inventory on hand, particularly where the products must be held one or two days for proper chilling. Therefore, there is a need in the meat industry in particular for a means or system of quickly chilling the products without undue shrinkage and to aid in utilizing space more efiiciently which is now used for inventory. Applicant has found that by controlling the movement of the air in the chilling chamber or cabinet, he can quickly chill the products in the cabinet, particularly Where the air is moved rapidly and quickly in a controlled movement through the cabinet.

Therefore, it is a primary object of my present invention to provide a controlled refrigeration system in which the circulation of the air within the room or cabinet is controlled so that the air flows in one direction and quite rapidly.

Another object of my present invention is to provide a controlled refrigeration system wherein all of the air confined within the space or cabinet is efficiently moved through the expansion coils in a rapid manner for quick heat exchange resulting in a quick chilling and cooling of the air.

A further object of my present invention is to provide high speed fans located on one side of the expansion coils, which fans rapidly draw the air through the expansion coils and circulate the air about the inner space or chamber.

Still another object of my present invention is to provide a wall or partition which blocks the flow of air in the chamber in such a manner that the air must circulate through the expansion coils.

A salient feature of my present invention resides in providing either a horizontal or vertical partition in the chamber, the horizontal partition extending completely from the front wall to the rear wall and the vertical partition extending from the ceiling or the top wall to the floor, but both partitions terminating short of the side walls of the room, chamber, compartment or cabinet so that the air must circulate in a given pattern between either the ceiling and the horizontal partition or between the rear wall and the vertical partition.

A still further object of my present invention is to space said respective partition a greater distance from one side Wall than from the other side wall, the larger distance or space being adjacent the blowing end of the fans so that at the suction end of the fans, the air will pile up in the smaller space and suddenly expand into the chamher, thus having a smaller amount of B.t.u.s per cubic foot of air space in the air just prior to its entrance or flow through the expansion coils. It is this rapid circulation of air and the piling up of the air in the smaller space and sudden expansion of the same into the interior of the cabinet adjacent the expansion coils that makes the system so eflicient and enables the system to quickly chill the products. For example, liver sausage can be chilled within 30 to 45 minutes in comparison with the old two-day chilling period and the link products which required a days chilling can be chilled as quickly as 5 minutes where the casings are sheep casings, and 10 minutes in hog casing links. Further, the system saves from 1 to 2% in product shrinkage.

Another important object of my present invention is to provide a controlled refrigeration system having the advantages enumerated above and which advantages will eliminate the necessity of a large inventory and a large amount of products can be made, chilled and packaged easily within a days time and sometimes within a halfdays time.

A still further object of my invention is .to provide a simple, practical, and reliable construction that is economical to manufacture, easy to assemble and positive in its operation.

With the above and other objects in view, which will more readily appear as the nature of the invention is better understood, the same consists in the novel method, construction, combination and arrangement of parts hereinafter fully described, illustrated and claimed.

A preferred and practical embodiment of my invention is shown in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a vertical elevational View through the cabinet or compartment, taken on the line 11 of FIG- URE 2, looking in the direction of the arrows and clearly showing the circulation and movement of the air through the compartment or cabinet;

FIGURE 2 is a horizontal section through the cabinet or compartment, the section being represented by the line 2-2 of FIGURE l of the drawings, looking in the direction of the arrows;

FIGURE 3 is a transverse vertical section through the cabinet or compartment, the section being represented by the line 3-3 of FIGURE '1 of the drawings and looking in the direction of the arrows, with certain parts being broken away so as to show further details in the construction and arrangement;

FIGURE 4 is a vertical elevational view in section of another arrangement utilizing my novel refrigeration control system, the arrangement being utilized primarily where low ceilings are involved, the section being taken on the line 4-4 of FIGURE 5 of the drawings, looking in the direction of the arrows;

FIGURE 5 is a horizontal section through that form of my invention shown in FIGURE 4 of the drawings, the section being represented by the line 5-5 of FIGURE 4 of the drawings, looking in the direction of the arrows and clearly showing the circulation of air in that particular arrangement; and

FIGURE 6 is a transverse vertical section taken on the line 6-6 of FIGURE 4, looking in the direction of the arrows.

Referring now to the drawings in detail, wherein similar reference characters designate corresponding parts throughout the sevaral views, the letter C generally indicates one type of my improved controlled refrigeration system and as previously mentioned, the units and system can be set up in a room, compartment or specially built cabinet as desired. Referring more particularly to FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 of the drawings for the purposes of illustration I have shown a cabinet 10 constructed on the floor 11 of a meat packing plant and the cabinet includes end walls 12 and 13 and front and rear walls 14 and '15 respectively. The front and rear walls 14 and 15 are provided with suitable closures 16 and these closures may be in the form of insulated refrigerator type doors but large enough to allow meat products to be rolled in on trucks or to be carried in by any type of rail hung apparatus (not shown). If the rail type apparatus is utilized, than a rail 17 is provided above each door opening 18 and these rails are hung by means of straps 19 from the ceiling or top Wall 20. In this particular form of the invention, the straps 19 are also utilized to hold the ceiling partition 21 in place and in this particular form of the invention the ceiling partition 211 is horizontally arranged and extends completely from the front wall 14 to the rear wall 15, but is spaced from the end or side walls 12 and 13. The space 23 is larger than the space 24. In other words, the distance between the end 25 of the horizontal partition 21 and the end wall 13 is greater than the distance between the end 26 of the horizontal partition 21 and the end wall 12. Centrally located in the cabinet or compartment 27 is a pair of chilling and freezing units and these units can have any of the conventional type exposed expansion coils and the expansion coils may be provided with fins and the like as is usual in refrigeration apparatus. However, I provide at one end of the expansion coils a series of high speed fans 28, one series of fan for each unit 29 that may be utilized.

It is to he understood that as many banks of the unit 29 may be utilized as are necessary for a particular plant, but we have found that the two-bank arrangement illustrated in FIGURES 1, 2 and 3 is sufficient for most meat packing plants and therefore, a number of these units are usually built into the plant. The fans are of the blower type and have an 8,000 cubic foot per minute air outlet and therefore, a number of these fans rapidly draw the air in the direction of the arrows (FIGURE 1 of the drawings) through the expansion coils where a heat exchange takesplace.

I also provide a partition or Wall 30 which completely closes off the space between the horizontal partition 21 and the floor 11 and also closes off the space between the units 20 and the walls 14 and 15. Thus, it can be seen that the air must move in the direction of the arrows when the fans are on and all of the air must eventually pass through the expansion coils where the heat exchange is to take place.

Now, the rapid movement of the air is one of the keys to the success of this system but another important key lies in the previously mentioned spaces 23 and 24 wherein the space 23 adjacent the blower end of the system is larger than the space 24 adjacent the intake end of the system. Thus, there will be a piling up of the air indicated by the numeral 31 and then a quick expansion as the air enters in the compartment 27. Thus, the B.t.u.s confined in a cubic foot of air are less per cubic foot as the air expands and a quicker heat exchange will take place as the air moves through the banks of expansion coils, fins and the like. From test installations of the above units, it has been found that the rapid chilling of link products can take place in to minutes, with a 1 to 2% saving in shrinkage over the old method of a days chilling time with considerable shrinkage. Shrinkage has always been a difficult problem in the meat packing industry and the saving is a boon to the industry. This obviously means agreat deal, in that the additional savings in the shrinkage of the product alone can pay back the cost of the unit installation in a short time. Further, the quick chilling as previously mentioned will eliminate the necessity of a large inventory as orders can be filled the same day and this, in itself, conserves considerable space previously used for carrying a large inventory. This space can now be used for production, thereby increasing the volume of ones business.

In installations where for some reason the ceiling is not sufficiently high to take the horizontal partition 21, we have found that a vertical partition 21 (note FIGS.

4, 5 and 6) works just about as efficiently and in this particular arrangement, the cabinet 40 is also constructed with the top wall 41, side walls 42 and 43, rear wall 44 and front wall 45. In this arrangement, however, only two refrigerator doors 46 are utilized as the partition 21' would block the use of doors in the rear wall 44. In the particular installation shown, I have illustrated only one refrigerator unit having its usual series of high speed fans 28. Obviously, more units could be utilized if desired, and incidentally, any number of fans could be utilized but I have found through experience that a bank of four fans is adequate and efficient.

The partition 21' in this arrangement is placed on the floor 11 and extends entirely upward to the ceiling 41 but here again, the end 25 is spaced a greater distance from the wall 43 than the end 26 is spaced from the wall 42. Instead of the air circulating in a floor to ceiling pattern, it circulates in a wall to wall pattern. Therefore, the space 23 being greater than the space 24', the air will again pile up at 31' and expand as it reaches the unit 29, thus giving the same effective and efficient heat exchange and quick chilling of the product.

From the foregoing, it can be seen that I have provided a controlled refrigeration system and cabinet arrangement that will accomplish in a matter of minutes what heretofore took hours or days to accomplish. Further, not only is a great amount of time saved, but the unit and system operates more efficiently, saving in shrinkage, etc. and it is believed that the features and advantages of my invention will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art and it will of course be understood that changes in the form, proportion and minor details of construction may be resorted to without departing from the spirit of the invention or the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A refrigeration system including a substantially rectangular cabinet having top, bottom, front, rear and side walls, a refrigeration unit positioned transversely of said front wall and rear wall and spaced a substantially equal distance from said side walls, a series of fans positioned in said refrigeration unit and arranged as to draw air through said unit, said fans being of a size and configuration to cause an extremely fast air circulation, a fiat rectangular shaped partition secured in said cabinet above said unit and extending entirely from said front wall to said rear wall, said partition having open ends spaced from said respective side walls, the distance between one end of said partition and its respective side wall being greater than the distance between its opposite end and its respective side wall, said greater distance being adjacent the blowing ends of said fans, and means in said front wall giving access to said cabinet.

2. A controlled refrigeration system comprising, a substantially rectangular compartment including top, bottom, front, rear and side walls, refrigeration units positioned transversely of said compartment, including fans positioned in one side of said units, said fans being of a size and configuration to give an extremely fast air circulation, a vertical partition extending transversely of said compartment amout said refrigeration units forming two compartments and so constructed and arranged as to confine the flow of air from one compartment to the other through said refrigeration units, a flat rectangular shaped longitudinally extending partition secured in said compartment and having two end edges extending from one Wall to an opposite wall but having its other two end edges spaced from their respective walls, one end edge of said longitudinally extending partition being spaced a greater distance from its respective wall than said other end edge is spaced from its respective wall, whereby when the fans are running, air will be forced to circulate in said compartment through said refrigeration units in a controlled pattern, and means provided in said front wall giving access to the interior of said compartment.

3. A controlled refrigeration system as set forth in claim 2 wherein said fans are so positioned and arranged with respect to said units and said longitudinally extending partition as to have their blowing ends adjacent said greater space between the respective end of said partition and its wall.

4. A refrigeration system as set forth in :claim 2, wherein said longitudinally extending partition is positioned vertically in said compartment, extending entirely from said top to bottom wall.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS King Jan. 15, 1935 Russell Oct. 10, 1944 Mathews Aug. 14, 1945 OTHER REFERENCES Periodical: National Provisioner; April 18, 1959; pages 25-26: volume 140, Number 16.

ASRE Data Book: Published by ASRE; 1956, pages 

1. A REFRIGERATION SYSTEM INCLUDING A SUBSTANTIALLY RECTANGULAR CABINET HAVING TOP, BOTTOM, FRONT, REAR AND SIDE WALLS, A REFRIGERATION UNIT POSITIONED TRANSVERSELY OF SAID FRONT WALL AND REAR WALL AND SPACED A SUBSTANTIALLY EQUAL DISTANCE FROM SAID SIDE WALLS, A SERIES OF FANS POSITIONED IN SAID REFRIGERATION UNIT AND ARRANGED AS TO DRAW AIR THROUGH SAID UNIT, SAID FANS BEING OF A SIZE AND CONFIGURATION TO CAUSE AN EXTREMELY FAST AIR CIRCULATION, A FLAT RECTANGULAR SHAPED PARTITION SECURED IN SAID CABINET ABOVE SAID UNIT AND EXTENDING ENTIRELY FROM SAID FRONT WALL TO SAID REAR WALL, SAID PARTITION HAVING OPEN ENDS SPACED FROM SAID RESPECTIVE SIDE WALLS, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN ONE END OF SAID PARTITION AND ITS RESPECTIVE SIDE WALL BEING GREATER THAN THE DISTANCE BETWEEN ITS OPPOSITE END AND ITS RESPECTIVE SIDE WALL, SAID GREATER DISTANCE BEING ADJACENT THE BLOWING ENDS OF SAID FANS, AND MEANS IN SAID FRONT WALL GIVING ACCESS TO SAID CABINET. 